Learning DevOps with an Industrial Perspective in the Software Engineering Curricula

The rapidly changing software industry presents challenges in teaching software engineering concepts and skills, especially in the area of DevOps. This encompasses both technical aspects, such as pipeline automation, and non-technical ones, such as culture, principles, and team interaction modes. This presents a significant challenge and there is high demand for skilled DevOps practitioners.

To address these challenges, we propose a teaching strategy for DevOps that is based on real-world experiences from companies adopting DevOps and real projects. The strategy incorporates two teaching techniques: Research-based Teaching and Open Source Software projects.

Our findings can help educators effectively plan, implement, and evaluate DevOps courses. The results also highlight several opportunities for practitioners to benefit from academic environments and experiment with new ideas to train abilities expected in new hires.